Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on reducing air pollution around schools, to help protect (a) teaching staff and (b) children attending schools during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities are responsible for the mitigation of air pollution hot spots in areas where people may be exposed, including schools. They have discretionary powers to take action to improve local air quality. For example, they can issue fixed penalty notices to drivers leaving engines running unnecessarily after being asked to turn them off. In areas with poor air quality, local authorities have a statutory duty to publish air quality plans for reducing air pollution.
Local authorities also have a statutory duty to promote sustainable school travel. The department’s guidance sets out that this duty should have a broad impact, including improvements in air quality to which children are particularly vulnerable.
Government advice, particularly during the COVID-19 outbreak, is to walk or cycle to school where possible. The Department for Transport’s cycling and walking investment strategy sets out the government’s ambition to make cycling and walking the natural choice for shorter journeys, or as part of a longer journey. Details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy.
On 9 May the Department for Transport announced a £2 billion package to promote cycling and walking:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/2-billion-package-to-create-new-era-for-cycling-and-walking.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to increase access to school bus services.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide free home to school transport for eligible children. A child is eligible if they are of compulsory school age, attend their nearest suitable school and it is more than the statutory walking distance from their home. The statutory walking distance is 2 miles for children under the age of 8 and 3 miles for children aged 8 and over. A child is also eligible if they live within the statutory walking distance but could not reasonably be expected to walk to school because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so.
There are additional entitlements to free home to school transport for those children who are eligible for free school meals, or if a parent they live with receives the maximum amount of Working Tax Credit. These are known as extended rights and are intended to support low income families in exercising school choice.
It is for local authorities to decide how they will provide free transport for eligible children depending on local circumstances. They might, for example, provide a pass for free travel on a service bus, or they might provide a dedicated school bus or a taxi to transport children.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) walking and (b) cycling to school on children's health.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities have a statutory duty to promote sustainable school travel. The Department’s guidance sets out that this duty should have a broad impact, including providing health benefits for children, and their families, through active journeys, such as walking and cycling; as well as improvements in air quality to which children are particularly vulnerable.
Government advice, particularly during the COVID-19 outbreak, is to walk or cycle to school where possible. This will not only help reduce the spread of infection and reduce demand on public transport, but also have enormous benefits for children’s health.
The Department for Transport’s cycling and walking investment strategy sets out the Government’s ambition to make cycling and walking the natural choice for shorter journeys, or as part of a longer journey. Details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy.
On 9 May the Department for Transport announced a £2 billion package to create new era for cycling and walking: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/2-billion-package-to-create-new-era-for-cycling-and-walking.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the recommendations made by the School Streets Initiative in relation to (a) healthier learning environments for school children and (b) increased space to ensure social distancing at schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Outdoor air quality and road traffic restrictions are the responsibility of local authorities. Where there are concerns about air quality the local authority must prepare an air quality action plan.
We are not aware of any recommendations to the Department on the impact of the School Streets Initiative on healthier educational environments. The Department published guidance (Building Bulletin 101) on achieving good indoor air quality in new and refurbished schools in 2019.
As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, made clear when he spoke at the daily press briefing on 19 June, the Department is working towards bringing all children and young people back to school in September. We have published further information and guidance to help schools prepare for September. The guidance is available here:
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the report of the all-party group on air pollution entitled, Air Quality Strategy to Reduce Coronavirus Infection, published on 29 May 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Outdoor air quality and road traffic restrictions are the responsibility of local authorities. Where there are concerns about air quality the local authority must prepare an air quality action plan.
We are not aware of any recommendations to the Department on the impact of the School Streets Initiative on healthier educational environments. The Department published guidance (Building Bulletin 101) on achieving good indoor air quality in new and refurbished schools in 2019.
As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, made clear when he spoke at the daily press briefing on 19 June, the Department is working towards bringing all children and young people back to school in September. We have published further information and guidance to help schools prepare for September. The guidance is available here:
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to tackle the word gap among pupils in (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
28% of children finish their reception year still without the early communication, language and literacy skills they need to thrive. The Department has set out an ambition to halve this figure by 2028. This is why the Department has launched ‘Hungry Little Minds’, a new three-year campaign to help parents support their child’s early language development. This builds on our wider early-years social mobility programme, where the Department is investing over £100 million.
The Department is committed to continuing this support once children reach primary school, which is why one of the three aims of the £26.3 million English Hubs Programme is early language development. 34 primary schools have been appointed as English hubs to support nearly 3000 schools across England to improve educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged children in reception and Key Stage 1.
The Department introduced a new curriculum for primary and secondary schools from 2014. The new curriculum for English increases the level of demand from an early age and aims to ensure that all pupils acquire a wide vocabulary, a good understanding of grammar, and proper knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and written language.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve support for children and young people in secondary schools who have speech, language and communication needs.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
We believe that schools should be able to offer effective support to all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We will be investing over £700 million in additional high needs funding to support children with complex needs. This will bring the total high needs funding budget to over £7 billion.
Although this additional funding will help, we recognise that more needs to be done to ensure this investment works well for all children and young people with SEND. The government recently announced a review of SEND which aims to improve the services available. Further information can be found at this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-review-into-support-for-children-with-special-educational-needs.
We have also recently undertaken a call for evidence on the financial arrangements that underpin provision for children and young people with SEND and those who need alternative provision. We will make sure that the evidence gathered and views expressed are fed into the department’s SEND review.
In addition to this, the department has provided £3.9 million funding to the National Association for Special Educational Needs, on behalf of the Whole School SEND consortium, for a 2-year programme of work to embed SEND into school improvement practice and equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching across all types of SEND. A SEND regional leader and deputy SEND leader has been appointed in each of the 8 Regional School Commissioner areas to build a Community of Practice and engage with local networks, including local champions in speech, language and communication needs, to enable the identification and sharing of good practice.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to issue guidance to schools on the need to include spoken language in schools’ special educational needs information reports.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Every school must publish a special educational needs (SEN) information report setting out how it implements its policy for pupils with SEN. Regulations set out what information must be included, so schools must describe their approach to teaching pupils with SEN and how they make adaptations to the curriculum for these pupils. It is for each school to determine the level of detail about these matters in the information it publishes.
Every local authority must also publish a local offer of its SEN provision. This should include the special educational provision made available to mainstream schools, including therapies such as speech and language therapy where they educate or train a child or young person.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference the June 2019 report of the Children’s Commissioner, We need to talk: access to speech and language therapy, if he will meet with the Local Government Association to discuss the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of that report.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are committed to ensuring more effective support for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). Ministers from the Department for Education (DfE) regularly meet with local government to discuss issues relating to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including SLCN.
On 20 May 2019, we held the first SEND ministerial roundtable meeting between ministers from the DfE, Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and key SEND stakeholders to help inform future SEND policy. We will also be using these meetings to help inform the SEND System Leadership Board which aims to improve joint working and strategic commissioning for all children and young people with SEND, including those with SLCN.
On 20 June 2019, the government issued a letter to I CAN and The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. That letter responded to the Bercow One Year Anniversary update report, and was co-signed by ministers from the DfE, DHSC and the Ministry of Justice. The letter reaffirms our commitment to supporting children and young people with SLCN, and sets out the key action the government is taking to address SLCN. A copy of the letter will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the June 2019 report of the Children’s Commissioner, we need to talk: access to speech and language therapy, if he will meet with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to discuss the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of that report.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are committed to ensuring more effective support for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). Ministers from the Department for Education (DfE) regularly discuss issues relating to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including SLCN, with ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and other government departments.
On 20 May 2019, we held the first SEND ministerial roundtable meeting between ministers from the DfE, DHSC and key SEND stakeholders to help inform future SEND policy. We will also be using these meetings to help inform the SEND system leadership board which aims to improve joint working and strategic commissioning for all children and young people with SEND, including those with SLCN.
On 20 June 2019, the government issued a letter responding to the ‘Bercow: Ten Years On’ first anniversary update report, which was co-signed by ministers from the DfE, DHSC and the Ministry of Justice. The letter reaffirmed our commitment to supporting children and young people with SLCN.